


To Hunt Alone

by DreamerInSilico



Series: The Names We're Given [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The glade scene.  A gauntlet is thrown, and accepted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Hunt Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Major Solas romance and effectively, endgame spoilers.

“I... apologize for distracting you from your duty. It will never happen again.”

Of all the things she expected to hear as he pulled away from that heart-stopping kiss... that had assuredly not been one of them.

Ilya simply blinked at him, every other muscle in her body perfectly still, suspended as she watched him, processing the awful implication of what her lover had just said. “Why, _lethallin_?” she asked after a long moment, voice a husky, strained whisper. “This has nothing to do with distracting me or not distracting me, and I would hear the real reason.”

She was too proud to beg him not to leave her, a point which she would find bittersweetly appropriate, later, in light of what he called himself.

Called himself, but she was more certain than ever that it was not his name.

A subtle flinch contorted his features at the endearment, but she felt no remorse for that. Let him be reminded of what he was attempting to walk away from, if he was going to insist on _not making any blighted sense_.

“I... I must. I am sorry, _vh_ – Inquisitor,” he rasped, backing away from her, eyes as wide and open and hurting as she was certain her own were. “All will be made clear, when this is over.”

“You bring me here speaking of truth, and this is what you give me?” she retorted, her low voice sharp as broken glass.

His eyes closed, as if to shut out the pain of that accusation. “It is all I can give you, right now. I am sorry,” he repeated, visibly bracing himself before turning away from her at last.

Ilya watched him for a few slow steps, her anger and frustration both cooling, slipping into the deep water she carried in her mind with barely a ripple, for the present. And then she spoke, playing the last card she had held in-hand in loving defiance, her voice softening at the edges but maintaining the stubborn strength of steel.

“Do not be sorry, only believe me: you need not always hunt alone.”

Had her intuition been wrong, that turn of phrase might have passed unnoticed, or more likely raised a snort or a laugh, that she would so casually yet subtly compare him to Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone. But instead, Solas paused as if rooted in place, and such was the completeness of that pause that she saw rather than heard even his breath catch in its normal rhythm.

Oh yes, there it was.

Even here, in one of the most direly fraught moments of her life, she felt a quiet thrill of pride at a puzzle solved, a question answered. Even though the answer, by all rights, should have been a terrible one.

And the ancient, fury-edged sadness in his eyes when he rounded on her was indeed terrible, but Ilya did not flinch, instead meeting that gaze steadily with her own, snow-sky grey meeting summer's blue.

“And how would you know?” he asked, words both dangerous and yearning.

“I know what I offer,” she answered, chin high. _Proud_. “And I know that whatever the future brings for us, the only sure way to be alone is to choose it. _And I'm telling you that you don't have to choose that_.”

Solas – _Fen'Harel_ – regarded her with no less hurt in his eyes, but there was also a hint of curiosity, now, the scent of a challenge, and she knew that she had said the right thing. “And what it is it exactly that you offer, _asha'enasal_?”

The new phrase that he named her took her breath away for a moment, her pulse marking the time loudly in her own ears before she replied. “I offer my _knowing_ heart, and my mind that's getting used to ignoring the impossible. They're both yours; they have been nearly from the start.” Ilya paused, taking a deep breath before continuing, “And I offer... my understanding. If it is truly what you wish, to sever this now and walk away, then tell me so truly, and I will not make it any harder for either of us.” Her reproach for attempting to leave her with the thinnest, most transparent of excuses, she left unspoken, but it hung in the air all the same, and she knew that he heard it.

The faintest of smirks tugged at his lips, then, in the long silence before he responded. “Not your body, though, I note.”

“I didn’t think it necessary to spell that one out,” she answered with a tight laugh, eyes searching his, hesitant to let herself quite feel the relief that he had named her, yet.

“That... I cannot tell you,” he admitted more seriously, voice nearly a sigh, “For... it is not my wish. It is further from that than I can possibly describe. I will... likely have to leave, however, when Corypheus is dealt with.”

“Will it hurt any less if you do it now, rather than then?” she asked bluntly. “I'd rather have you physically with me, of course, but if I can't... knowing you would want that as well will stand as reasonable substitute.”

Solas let out a small, half-despairing laugh, but his eyes had gentled, and he'd taken a step back toward her. “You're right. As you so often are, _vhenan_. I am humbled by it.”

Ilya allowed herself to relax, just a little, smiling tentatively at him as she stepped forward and took his hands in hers. “I can't imagine you being anything close to humble.”

“...Relatively speaking,” he amended with a low chuckle, squeezing her hands gently before glancing down at their linked fingers, letting out a tiny, huffed snort, then releasing them all at once in favor of reaching up to grab her face in both hands and kiss her with a ferocity that even in their months together, she had not yet experienced.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel compelled to explain that this isn’t meant to manufacture a Happily Ever After. In my headcanon, he still leaves after the final battle; there is still no shortage of difficulty for the two of them, and I plan to write plenty more detailing such things. 
> 
> But the theme of my thread in the Dragon Age tapestry - Mei Surana, Catrin Hawke, Ilya Lavellan - is choosing to be better. Choosing to stare the truth in the eyes and carry it forward into a future that always has a chance of being brighter than the past, if we only strive to make it so.
> 
> So… here’s a piece of that.


End file.
